Published on April 26, 2023

Chamath’s trillion dollar prediction

Currents and Startups

Connecting the dots between today's headlines and tomorrow's startups.

Chamath’s trillion dollar prediction

In today’s Currents and Startups issue, we’re covering the trillion dollar bomb Chamath recently dropped on a Lex Fridman podcast. Read on to find out what his prediction is and how that affects you as a startup founder, employee, or investor.

If you don’t know who Chamath is, here’s a picture of him:

Post-workout selfie of Chamath and his six-SPAC

Besides being Silicon Valley’s most treasured heartthrob, Chamath is well-known in VC as the founder of Social Capital, where they invest in overlooked companies. He is also one of the four members of the All-In Podcast.

His take: creators will be the billionaires of the future

Before, all money and attention flowed into platforms… Googles and Apple
Next they went to apps… Facebook, Instagram, YouTube
What's after? Creators

If you’ve been following influencers like Andrew Tate and Stevewilldoit, you’ll notice that a lot of creators have been getting banned from platforms like Twitter and YouTube.

To overcome their strict monetization and content policies, they’ve been funneling their audiences into platforms like Rumble, who are positioning themselves to be the home for people being censored, or even creating their own likes with the Sidemen and Side+.

These creators are attracting massive audiences who follow them to whichever platform they go to and supporting whatever venture they start (think Logan Paul and Prime).

Before, people glamorized being an early employee at the next Facebook. Soon they’ll dream of working for the next Mr. Beast.

All future value in terms of attention will accrue to them.

What does this mean for you?

If you’re a business, you’ll want to invest in influencer marketing and user-generated content.

Take Alex Hormozi for example – he invests $70,000 a month in short-form content of him giving business and life advice. If he wanted to get the same amount of impressions but through paid advertising, he would need to spend $2,000,000 a month.

That means for Alex, organic content costs 28x cheaper than paid ads for the same results.

Of course, if you start with zero followers, paid ads produce higher immediate returns. But the snowball effect of content creates massive advantages like consumer trust and lower CPM that are impossible to compete with in the long run.

Shaan Puri mentioned on a recent My First Million episode that businesses should start a podcast even if nobody listens. Why? The conversations that come out of that can be leveraged to serve a nurturing role in your marketing funnel.

Another way to capitalize on creators is influencer seeding, where brands send free products to people like Mr. Beast with no strings attached. The marginal cost is nothing compared to the potential of millions of impressions if the influencer posts about it.

Takeaways for Founders ✅

As for trends that founders and investors can keep an eye on, the creator economy is bound for AI disruption.

AI allows for personalized and tailored content in a way that’s never been achievable before. Imagine people experiencing the same piece of content, but in entirely different formats and perspectives.

The NBA is already taking advantage of this with their tool that lets you scan and insert yourself into a live game. Want to hit threes like Steph Curry? Now you can. Want to blow a 3-1 series? You can too ;)

As AI develops, the cost for production moves closer to zero, making way for endless content possibilities.

Content should be at the center of everyone’s attention moving forward. With the barrier of entry becoming so low, it’s risky not to pay attention to it.

Thanks for reading! See you in our next weekly summary edition where we feature the coolest startups, jobs, and events.

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